indago wrote:
061215 1238 - USguy posted:

I'm looking for suggestions on what home humidifier to get.

Any helpful suggestions out there? Has anyone had experiences with
the AprilAire or the York system?

What should I look for in a humidifier to take care of a 1000 square
foot house with forced air?

Consumer reports was worthless on this issue. They didn't have
ratings for any of them. I've gotten quotes as high as $800 for a
model another vendor wants $500 for. Now it sounds like the model I
was looking for is about as good as the next model down which is just
$350 installed.

Help -- looking for suggestions.

About three years ago, the same discussion appeared on this particular
NewsGroup. I wrote:
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A humidifier for home or apartment is not something that should be left
unmaintenanced for several months. For that reason, I don't purchase the
conventional humidifiers. In some of the homes and apartments I have been
in I use two Rubbermaid trays and four sponges. I have built a simple rack
to hold the trays and put them in front of one of the cold air return
registers in the apartments. Then, lean the sponges onto the register. Turn
the furnace on and then fill the trays with hot water. The moisture will
absorb into the sponge and the air moving over the sponge and into the cold
air return will circulate through the furnace and out the hot air registers.
If it has been dry before, there will be a noticeable change in the quality
of the air in the rooms. It is finally breatheable. I, like many others,
need the humidity in the air or my breathing apparatus will crack from the
dryness, and is, therefore, subject to all of the viruses that can attack.

In a couple of apartments that I had inhabited, I built an aluminum angle
rack to hold the two trays, and the cold air return was up high -- the
furnace was downdraft. I had a short aluminum ladder to get up to the
humidifier to fill it with hot water. I have a small electric pump and
control system for my hand and a water tube that stretches from the kitchen
sink to the humidifier, which is only about 10' away. I fill a small bucket
with hot water and then, with the pump in the water, turn it on and the hot
water comes out of the small tubing into the humidifier trays, where I cover
the sponges with hot water while I am filling the trays. The furnace should
be running while this operation is performed so that the rooms will be
immediately filled with warm, moist air.


Great idea. Instead of a $250 system like Aprilaire that requires
maintenance once a season, the way to go is this contraption that
requires constant maintenance. Careful you don't trip over that water
line from the sink. Or maybe you have and that's how you came up with
the idea.






On a home, a register could be cut into the cold air return on the furnace,
and an aluminum angle rack made to hold two of the Rubbermaid trays with the
four sponges. In this way the humidifier can be maintained properly and
filled when low on water. It should be filled with hot water while the
furnace is running to gain full advantage of the warm, moist air moving. The
trays usually need filling about once a month, or every two weeks when it
gets really cold out and the furnace runs a lot.

With such a system, the quality of the moist air in the rooms is held at a
high standard. The four sponges will begin to crust a little at the top
where the moisture is mostly removed from but with the maintaining schedule
the sponges can be easily removed from the trays and cleaned and rinsed in a
sink.
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